


waiting to grant wishes of violence

by aletterinthenameofsanity



Series: hold my hand (i can hear the ghost calling) [20]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Disabled Character of Color, Drabble, M/M, Murder, Not Steve Friendly, Revenge, Sad Ending, Steve Rogers Becomes A Villain, from the series itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-01 06:23:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18330401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aletterinthenameofsanity/pseuds/aletterinthenameofsanity
Summary: In the worst timeline, Steve’s shield goes just a few inches further in that cave in Siberia.Steve Rogers hasn’t been a hero for a long time. His morals have bent to serve his own ideals and purposes- or, more accurately, the world changed and he refused to change with it, dug his heels into what morals he had and beliefs he thought he carried.He sees Tony as a traitor for having attacked Bucky, his best friend. And Steve Rogers doesn't take well to traitors. He has no forgiveness for traitors.It isn’t such a stretch to shove the shield in a bit further and kill the man attacking his best friend. It isn't such a stretch for him to leave a 'traitor' lying on the ground, blood pooling under his armor, his chest and heart split open by the shield of the man he called friend.





	waiting to grant wishes of violence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pawn_vs_player](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/gifts).
  * Inspired by [all the good he did not do](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17107634) by [pawn_vs_player](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawn_vs_player/pseuds/pawn_vs_player). 



> Title is from "Shine" by Shane Koyczan.
> 
> Blame pawn_vs_player for this, y'all. I read their story about the worst possible ending for Into The Spiderverse and their Not Steve Friendly works and this is what emerged.

In the worst timeline, Steve’s shield goes just a few inches further in that cave in Siberia.

Steve Rogers hasn’t been a hero for a long time. His morals have bent to serve his own ideals and purposes- or, more accurately, the world changed and he refused to change with it, dug his heels into what morals he had and beliefs he thought he carried. 

He sees Tony as a traitor for having attacked Bucky, his best friend. And Steve Rogers doesn't take well to traitors. He has no forgiveness for traitors.

It isn’t such a stretch to shove the shield in a bit further and kill the man attacking his best friend. It isn't such a stretch for him to leave a 'traitor' lying on the ground, blood pooling under his armor, his chest and heart split open by the shield of the man he called friend.

-

Sam is working on getting himself into bed that night when his phone rings. Or, well, the overcom rings, because his phone automatically patches into the Tower’s bluetooth system whenever he arrives on the premises.

Sam sighs, glancing down at his half-wrecked bionic leg. “Can you answer that, JARVIS?” He asks, before remembering that Tony hasn’t rebuilt JARVIS yet after Ultron. “Alright,” he grumbles, and swings his leg back off of the bed, catching himself on the edge of the mattress. From there he makes his way, hobbling incredibly slowly, over to his phone, which sits on the dresser. He then braces himself against the wall beside the dresser and looks at the name on the screen. He raises an eyebrow at the words. **SHIELD- NAME WITHHELD** , the screen reads. Alright. Maybe they have news about his husband. He presses the green  **ACCEPT CALL** button.

“Lt. Wilson-Stark," Nick Fury says, and Sam wonders how Fury knows what his last name is. The team, by this point, knows that he and Tony are in a relationship- but that they're married, not so much-

Then Sam's entire world crumbles at Fury's next words. "They found your husband’s body in Siberia."

And Sam stops questioning how Fury knows about his marriage, doesn’t notice the small measure of sympathy in his expression.

All he can think of is his husband, dead, alone in that cave, his corpse freezing in the snow. Tony was older, had joked about dying first, but he wasn’t supposed to die _now_. He wasn’t supposed to die in a cave, frozen and alone.

Sam saying yes when Tony asked if he was okay with him going after Sam and Bucky wasn't supposed to be a death sentence- it was supposed to be just another mission that Tony would return from with a cocky smile and the desire for a hug.

' _Til death do us part_ wasn't supposed to be only a couple of years. They were supposed to have longer. 

They were supposed to have a lifetime. 

-

They bury Tony on a Sunday. Sam stands there, dressed in a black suit Tony got him for some gala, one of Tony's favorite wine red ties around his neck.

Around his finger lies his wedding ring, and underneath of his shirt lies a too-familiar chain. They've given him back his and Riley's dogtags, smashed near-through by some massive weapon. They've given him the ring, dinged-up and ice-chipped, that Tony wore on the same chain as the dogtags.

But it's not enough. It'll never be enough. Not when Tony's dead and gone, and there's nothing Sam can do to bring him back.

-

Sam finds out who did it, how a shield smashed open his husband's chest to the point where they had to cremate the body rather than bury it, and he disappears for a few days. So does Natasha Romanoff. Some people worry about Sam, while others quietly pray for a disappearance to be announced whenever he returns.

(Sam is not the only person who cares about Tony Stark. He is not the only one who wants to see justice for Tony's death.)

They return to New York a week later, no blood on their hands, nothing seemingly off. They part on a dock in the middle of the night, dressed casually with nothing illegal on them. 

Natasha’s eyes gleam in the moonlight reflecting off of the ocean. “I’m sorry,” she doesn’t say, and Sam doesn’t expect her to. “It’ll get better,” she doesn’t say either.

There's very little that can really make this better. There's no way to make up for Tony's death. 

There is something hollow and painful in Sam's chest, a gaping hole that will never be truly filled. He's lost his husband, the man he loved, and what they just did- it doesn't fix a goddamn thing.

So instead, Sam just nods at her. "Thank you," he says, not specifying anything that just happened, not saying everything he feels.

Natasha nods back. "You're welcome," she says, gaze cool, and Sam, in another situation, might have been terrified of her. But here and now, she's helped him in what he had to do, and so instead all he feels is a sense of bleak gratitude. 

Then they leave, heading their separate ways. They'll probably meet up again sometime soon, to deal with the future of the Avengers, but for now, there's nothing tying them and their crime together.

-

The news of the disappearance of Captain America flashes in between updates on the future of Stark Industries, and Sam sits alone in the penthouse and watches.

Sam knows Tony well. He knows how Tony's hand shook from the aftermath of Afghanistan, shook when he had a panic attack or was nervous or even when they were just sitting eating dinner and Tony would be holding a fork for too long. He knows how Tony's hand would sometimes fidget when he was really happy or excited about something, when he was on a tangent or even in a business meeting.

Sam's hand doesn't shake now as he holds his cup of water, and it didn't shake when he put a bullet between Steve Roger's eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure I like it as much as I do other "dark" stories from this series, like Natasha's first one, but I think I like it for what it is. Hope you guys did too!


End file.
